More on the Therapeutic Value of the Table
Theodore Millon is perhaps the world’s foremost personality theorist and psychologist. He chaired the DSM IIIR committee for Axis II personality disorders and is the creator of the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-III which assists helping professionals in identifying deeply embedded maladaptive patterns of behavior. Millon states that all unhealthy patterns of thoughts, emotions and behaviors are on a continuum. (1 being low and 10 being high) For example, anger exists in each of us, but it is present in different degrees. (Mild, moderate, severe) What determines pathology in an individual is not the existence of anger, but the intensity and frequency of anger impulses, and the ability of a person to appropriately identify and manage the anger impulses. (The same can be said of fear, anxiety, mania, depression, obsessions, compulsions, etc.)
In order to measure the severity of unhealthy patterns of thoughts, emotions and behavior, Millon identified three factors that intensify as people move higher up the continuum of struggle and pathology.
These factors are:
- Tenuous Stability
- Rigid inflexibility
- Vicious Cycles
I have seen over the years when people are in trouble with themselves that they carry a tenuous stability. Often people around them feel like they are “Walking on eggshells” or “Can’t ruffle feathers.” Sometimes the instability is carried with a kind of quiet desperateness and other times with outright threat. When you are around people in this state you often feel some crisis is likely to break out. And when people do move toward breaking down in some way, they most often become more rigid and inflexible. When we feel like things are out of control we compensate by trying desperately to control whatever we can. Listening is difficult and we become more certain about things that are uncertain. As a pastor I have seen people in this desperate place often become ultra spiritual, just before the crash comes. The rigidity is a manifestation of fear. Think of how your body rigidly recoils when you are startled or faced with fear.
But the most identifiable of Millon’s measurements is Vicious Cycles. As sure as Summer follows Spring and Winter, Fall, we are aware of the propensity of thoughts, emotions and behaviors to run in cycles. We might hear someone say, “There she goes again, choosing the same kind of guy” or “He’s doing it again, I’ve seen this movie before.” In counseling sessions, I often have couples who frequently argue mark on a calendar every time they have an argument. It quickly becomes clear that there is a pattern to the arguments and unless the pattern is interrupted it is likely to “Drill down” and become more frequent and more intense.
In scriptural terms Paul uses the word “Flesh” to describe patterns of destructive behavior. (Galations 5: 19) Ask any addict about the existence of vicious cycles. When they are using they will tell you that no such cycles exist. This is because the drinking or using is numbing them and they have no awareness of the cycles. However, when they stop drinking or using the anesthesia is gone and the craving comes in waves or patterns that can be measurable. At first the cycles come almost continuously. Consequently, Alcoholics Anonymous sponsors will often tell new members to go to 90 meetings in 90 days. The reason is that when these vicious cycles are “Cycling” hard, they need to be surrendered, often. Because when the behavior is engaged it results in relapse and a repeat of the same destructive consequences.
These cycles are the reason Jesus said to forgive 70 times 7. This does not mean that you need to stick around and allow someone to offend you 490 times. Jesus didn’t. He said, “No one takes my life, I will lay it down.” He was not a victim. Often he “Passed through their midst” when they were trying to harm him. (Luke 4:28-30, John 8:59) Standing in the way of abuse is not a Christian virtue. But what Jesus meant was that sometimes, someone will offend you ONCE, and that offense cuts so deep that it begins to cycle. The scenario runs through your mind over and over again. It is with you at work and with you at home, and it keeps you from sleeping at night, because it is running the offense though your mind, again and again. (Perhaps, 490 times) In my own experience, at the end of each vicious cycle (or wave) there is a moment where I can ask for grace to move my heart toward forgiveness; or I can strengthen my resolve for vengeance.
This moment moves me one direction or the other. If at this moment I am able to bring my hurt, pain, and anger to the Table of Surrender and lift it up on the altar, and give all that is in me at that moment to Jesus; grace will come and the cycle will have been interrupted, for that moment. In time, as we live at the Table and continue in the spirit of yieldedness and surrender, these cycles will come less frequently and with less intensity. As we heal, we may see them on the horizon of our mind, but they will not have place in our inner heart. This is the way process of healing from our losses, wounds, addictions and even from mental struggles.
But if in that moment, at the end of the cycle, (or wave) we move our hearts toward vengeance, darkness, negativity, and faithlessness, the cycle is like a drill that cuts deeper into our soul and spirit. Anger, for example, wants to cycle until it becomes resentment; (Look at the word… RE- SENT- ment) and resentment wants to drill the cycles in us until it becomes a toxic root of bitterness that poisons the spirit. It is the reason Jesus calls us to live our lives at the same Table He gave His all for us. Romans 12:1I beseech you by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God
I grew up in a spiritual tradition that emphasized the power of God which emanates from the Throne. I am grateful for what I received from this emphasis. But I did not bring myself often enough and die to myself at the daily Table of Surrender. My answer to everything became a need to secure more power. I kept looking for a spiritual experience so great that I was going to be delivered from temptation. It was my heresy to think that the flesh could somehow be cast out. The flesh can’t be cast out it has to be surrendered daily upon the Table.
Deliverance will loosen the grip that an addiction, attachment or thought has on us, but once that happens we join the rest of the called of God at the Table of daily surrender. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection Romans 6:5
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